Month: January 2025

It is not often anymore that I recount the days leading up to Mark’s death, the manner in which he died, or the aftermath of that devastating day. In the beginning I had to tell the story over and over which I learned was common and even necessary after a death. Now it seems like everyone knows and those who don’t can hear it from someone else. On the rare occasion when I hear my own voice recounting those days from six years ago I still have trouble believing any of it.

I went to lunch last week with a friend who lost her husband three years ago. Our daughters have been friends since middle school but it was the sudden death of our husbands that forged a friendship. We seem to need to touch base after the holidays when we feel steam rolled and flattened and need to check in to make sure we aren’t crazy. Eventually we start talking about the things people say to us that feel like a knife to an open wound that will never heal. “Happy couples on Facebook,” we say, “gawd, I hate their smiling fake faces that say look at us.” There is no escaping we say and I thought of all the times I posted a happy anniversary and photo of Mark and I for all the world to see how much I loved this guy I married. Surely it stung someone I knew who had lost their spouse or was in the midst of a divorce they never wanted. BUT HEY YOU GUYS MAYBE YOU CAN STRIVE FOR WHAT I HAVE was the hidden message when I was clueless about the permancy of loss. “To be honest,” I said to my friend, “I was probably one of those obnoxious people who tried to cheer someone out of their grief and did everything wrong including piss them off,” and she agreed because experience dramatically changes your empathy. “When you know you know,” she said as the ghosts of the two men we loved hovered over our table.

A few months ago I was invited to a dinner party. I knew the hosts and one other person and since it was centered around an author the subject of my writing came up. I said that I started a blog many years ago and mostly wrote humorous pieces about life until my husband died suddenly and it changed the course of everything in my life. Before I knew it I was recounting Mark’s death to the rapt attention of everyone at my end of the table, hearing my own voice tell a story that sounded horrific and must have happened to someone else because how could it be me? How could I live through that and casually say why yes I’ll have more wine. At one point my voice cracked, the specific detail I don’t remember because it is all worthy of cracking. The faces of those around me looked stunned and uneasy and I don’t think there will ever be a time in my life that I won’t want to crawl out of my skin when I see the reaction to the retelling of the day Mark died. Maybe it’s because it spectacularly fails to match up to my heartbreak and that of my kids, maybe it feels like a heaping dose of pity instead of empathy, maybe because if it could happen to me it could happen to you and nobody wants to believe that could possibly be true.

When the dusty remains of my story settled and blanketed the table, someone asked, “Are you mad at him?” Are you mad at him? I fumbled, I deflected, I forgot for the thousandth time the thing my therapist said was the only proper response to a question like that. Why do you ask? I don’t remember what I said. Did I throw my dead husband under the bus for leaving me? Did I say anything that made sense to someone who never knew him, never saw his passion or exuberance and delight for life? That he got so excited when his grown kids were in the house that it felt like Christmas morning? That after his Saturday morning rides with his biking friends his eyes would glisten as he said, “I love those guys.” Or did I say that I saw a despair on my husband’s face that I hope you never see because you will never forget it. That I saw him struggle and come out on top over and over and the last struggle took him down in a way that on any other day would have shocked him to his core.

When you know you know my friend and I say to each other over lunch, which is why the only thing you need to say when someone invites you into the corridors of their grief is, “You must miss him terribly.”

Last month when I linked the pre-Christmas post I had written on my Facebook author page, someone commented that my writing was always profound. I kicked that word around for a good, long time while frantically finishing my shopping. The only conclusion I came to was, like another word someone and I were recently talking about it, that is one that has some weight to it.

Our Christmas Eve plan was to go to a friend’s house. Both having three kids of similar ages and living around the corner from each other, we’ve been friends for decades. Last year we celebrated with them and had so much fun that we were looking forward to a repeat. But first Maggie, Mal, Rubin (Mal’s partner), and my two grandkids went to the performing arts center to see the matinee performance of The Nutcracker. We have done this for the last few years and this time my grandson had reached the age which my daughter said was old enough to go. I was exhausted and last year fell asleep during it. My prediction was that I would do the same this go ’round. I made it through the first half, we went to the lobby, and the grown-ups in the group (sans me) had a glass of wine. When we returned to our seats and the house lights dimmed, there was the distracting noise of someone opening a bag. While Joseph and Mary were wandering around Bethlehem on their donkey looking for a place to have a kid and little dancers were doing step-ball-chain on the stage, someone behind us decided it was time to partake in that corned beef sandwich and bag of chips they had stuffed into their coat pocket. Rubin turned around and gave them the stinkeye. When the show ended and the lights went up I turned around to deliver the old-lady-stinkeye which is more effective because it’s been done much longer. The offenders had skedaddled as one might expect since they were lunching at A PERFORMING ARTS CENTER DURING THE PERFORMANCE. The audacity Rubin and I said as we were leaving as my six-year-old grandson exclaimed, “This has been the best Christmas Eve of my life!”

When we got home I saw a message from my friend followed by a phone call. She had Covid, our Christmas Eve plans came to a screeching halt, and so Michael and I decided we’d get Chinese food (a la A Christmas Story). I have been ordering take-out from the same restaurant for over thirty years, made some choices for five of us, and called it in. The phone rang and rang. I tried again and then again. I was certain they had to be open and so we decided to drive over and place our order.

We walked into the packed restaurant, lines of people waiting for a table, the phone lit up like a Christmas tree ringing and ringing. When we saw one of the harried owners and asked about placing a to-go order, she wrote it down, said it would take an hour, and to come back. Not what we were expecting but at least we had a dinner plan in the works. When we returned to pick up our food the restaurant was even busier with groups of families crammed in from the cold and waiting for a table. Occasionally a group would leave, another group would get seating, three more groups would walk in the door. Grandparents hobbled in like wise men around the manger and sat waiting amongst us. I whispered to Michael, “I hope if the time comes that I am using a walker that the people I love don’t drag me out in freezing weather on Christmas Eve to a packed restaurant because I think it’s probably going to kill half these people.” In the meantime, the husband half of the owners kept disappearing while the wife kept telling us our order would be “two more minutes.” Over in the corner, a short, middle-aged, white guy (SMAWG) said, “My wife and I come here every Saturday at noon. I’ve never seen it like this.”

After waiting a good while, a tall, angry white guy (TAWG) comes in the door and he’s got an ax to grind because nobody is answering the phone. When he gets the attention of the daughter of the owner and says he wants to place a to-go order she tells him they can’t take any more orders, that the kitchen can’t keep up with what they have, and he stares at her menancingly because apparently nobody has ever told him no. The wife gets wind of the problem, comes over, looks at his order, and says they’ll do it. There are some words exchanged in Chinese between mother and daughter. I have no idea what they are saying but I am backing the daughter because TAWG seems exceptionally unlikeable. SMAWG leans over and says to him, “My wife and I come here every Saturday at noon. I’ve never seen it like this.”

From the back of the restaurant comes another guy to pay his bill. He announces that they need a plumber and because it’s utter chaos nobody pays attention to him. Then his wife and young daughter join him and he asks if she went to the bathroom. The wife says the toilets in the women’s room were being plunged. “Just take her to the mens,” her husband said. “That’s backed up, too,” she says and then he not so quietly said, “Just have her go on top of what’s in there and don’t flush it,” and I was like I CANNOT DO THIS ONE MORE MINUTE. “She can’t,” the wife says, “there’s too much in there and I lean over to Michael and whisper, “Are they really doing this here? Are they really going to keep talking about the shitter being full?”

SMAWG weighs in with, “What you have here is a sewer backup. One wrong move and you’ve got a restaurant overflowing with everything in that toilet,” and I feel a dry heave working its way up the chain of gastro command. We hear someone say to us “two more minutes,” TAWG stops fuming for five seconds to say this is ridiculous, and SMAWG says, “My wife and I come here every Saturday at noon. I’ve never seen it like this,” and while Mary is in labor with a bunch of men standing around and doing nothing I think about strangling this guy in her name. There is more discussion about the toilets and the wife says, “It’s a good thing they have a waste management guy here.” Her husband chuckles and I wonder why that’s such a good thing if he’s not offering to do anything about it. They decide maybe Walgreen’s is still open and they leave so their daughter can pee there. The husband and wife owners pass by and are arguing in Chinese. He’s flustered and sweaty from plunging. She keeps telling people they can get a table when clearly they are beyond capacity. I’m on his side. SMAWG says to nobody, “My wife and I come here every Saturday at noon. I’ve never seen it like this,” and I was like FOR THE LOVE OF THE NEWBORN JESUS WILL YOU LET IT GO.

After forty minutes our order is ready. They read it off and everything is there. Mary has a healthy baby boy, some kid thinks drumming in her face is helpful, and we have Chinese food. It’s a Christmas miracle. We head for home only to come across a backup of cars waiting to turn into a tiny cul-de-sac known as Candy Cane Lane. I have seen it a thousand times. Every house is over-the-top decorated for Christmas. When Mark was alive he said, “What if you’re the guy who doesn’t want to do this? What if you’re like eff it. It’s too cold. I’m not putting up the lights and a fat, dumb snowman.” I told him he’d probably get silenced, stuffed in a storage shed, and end up on a Dateline episode. A few days earlier when Michael and I drove by it he said, “Huh, do you have to do this if you live on this street,” and I started seeing a pattern in the men I choose. Behind the line of cars Michael said, “Maybe I should go around them,” and I said “Gun it,” and finally, blessedly we arrived home with our dinner.

We filled our plates, played a game of Yahtzee, I got a little hammered. The next day we we told Maggie and Nate about our wild night trying to get some food. Then we opened gifts, the grandkids happily played with their new toys, we hugged each other and said thank you I love it. I do not have a single profound thing to write about any of it except that like every year it was A GIGANTIC CLUSTER WITH ENTIRELY TOO MUCH PEOPLING INVOLVED and that for the first time in many years it felt good to love every wild minute of it.

When I was ten years old, there was an epic January storm in Chicago that dumped 23″ of snow. It was forever known afterwards as The Blizzard of ’67. The snow started early in the morning and didn’t stop until the early hours of the following day. While accustomed to large amounts of snow, this one packed winds of up to 50 mph.

We went to school that day because that was what we were supposed to do. Dad went to work and, Mom, who loved the cold and snow, was at home with Ann. We got an early dismissal from school and at about the time we would normally be coming home, Dad called Mom to say he was leaving work as it would take a bit longer to get home given the weather. What unfolded over the rest of the day and night I don’t remember except that every hour Mom and the boys would get into coats, boots, and gloves and go outside and shovel. My sisters and I watched from the living room window. When it got dark Mom went out alone and you could barely make her out as the snow swirled around her. She’d come in, wipe the tears from her cold face, warm up, and repeat. As the night wore on, Mom said Dad would be home any minute and shooed us all to bed.

What was normally an hour ride from work to home with his carpool buddy, Roscoe, took Dad eleven hours. He was driving our VW bug and credited that little car with being able to manuever where drivers in bigger cars weren’t able. It was also small enough and light enough to push when they got stuck. They got close to Roscoe’s house and Dad walked the remaining four blocks home.

The following day my three brothers went with Dad to dig the car out. Mom was in a panic because, Ann, who was only a year old needed milk and we were running out. We headed to the store, put a couple of gallons on our sled, and walked home.

This weekend we had a snowstorm that dumped half the amount of snow from that infamous blizzard of my childhood. For days before it had been predicted to land on Saturday afternoon starting with freezing rain and turning to snow. On Thursday I went to two different grocery stores – one was packed, the other nearly empty. I ran some errands on Saturday morning for essential things like going to the paint store and getting samples. Michael went to the grocery store. I asked him to pick up a few things I forgot and he came home without any chicken breasts because they were completely sold out.

We watched the local news, the Weather Channel, and our phones to keep track of it all. There was not a moment this weekend when we weren’t aware of the weather conditions, the road conditions, school closings, store closings, work closings. Yesterday when I turned on the tv to watch my favorite Sunday morning show, it was wall-to-wall coverage of the storm. Bundled up reporters running their booted feet along icy streets, cutting to another reporter standing next to a pile of snow as a plow rumbled by, cutting back to the studio where the breathless, suited weather guy was so hyped up over the weather you’d think he snorted something every time he was off camera.

Decades after that snowstorm of my youth, I was talking to Mom one day about how different it was back then, how there were no cellphones, nothing more than the six and 10:00 news to know what was going on, how you may have known that it was going to snow but it didn’t cause a city-wide panic and a run on the grocery store. “I was so worried about your dad,” she said, “that I kept going out to clear the driveway and looking down the street hoping to see his car.”

And all that time I thought the tears we saw on her face when she came in from shoveling was because of the cold.